<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Tale as Old as Time by LovelyLytton</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26102890">Tale as Old as Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLytton/pseuds/LovelyLytton'>LovelyLytton</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:48:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26102890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLytton/pseuds/LovelyLytton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Venus navigates reincarnation. CT.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aino Minako/Kunzite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCrane2/gifts">CopperCrane2</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>CHAPTER ONE</strong>
</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Here’s the thing about being immortal: not everybody else is.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>She couldn’t count the times she ran into people she’d known one, five, thirteen lifetimes ago and blanked on why they’d seemed so familiar. Hours later, she’d realise that the waitress at the restaurant had been her kindergarten teacher way back when, the man waiting patiently at the helibus stop had been a minor TV personality in the early 2000s, and the kid chucking pebbles into the Serenity pool, one of Crystal Tokyo’s prime tourist sites, was the reincarnation of her own mother. Immortal life was weird like that. At some point over the decades, you learned to shrug it off and simply moved on.</p>
<p>Except when she encountered yet another version of him, of course. There was never a moment of wondering where she knew that tall man from.</p>
<p>She knew, she’d always known, and she’d always know. And while Venus had made a habit of ignoring most people she-already-knew-but-really-didn’t and let’s just move on here, nothing to see, right (right?), she was unable to do the same with him. And really, what was the harm? As she’d learned over her own three lifetimes and the many centuries inbetween, he’d never remember her until it was too late anyway.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The first time she’d run into one of his many reincarnations (excluding the experience with the Dark Kingdom, of course), she was just on the verge of stopping to be Minako Aino for good. It was becoming impossible to explain to everyone why at the age of 37, she still looked like a 23 year old, perky bum, shiny hair and all. So she had decided this very morning that Minako Aino would forever depart Tokyo for Paris, to engage in a life of art, debauchery, and scandal, something that even her own parents, now well in their late eighties, would believe without a second’s hesitation. From there, Minako would slowly fade out of sight, out of mind, until she was just that flighty woman you once knew, more anecdote than real person, and people would fondly wonder whatever happened to her before returning to the more mundane concerns of their own lives.</p>
<p>But a good lie requires due diligence. So she walked into a travel agency, surprised they still existed in this internet world where everything was just a click away, and found herself waiting for the travel agent to finish up his consultation and help her construct the last great lie of Minako Aino’s lifetime.</p>
<p>There was one other customer in the agency, sitting with his back to her and nodding his head as the agent explained why the Bahamas were a very good idea for a surprise engagement trip, no inoculations necessary beyond what you should have anyway, lovely beaches, exotic locale, and pricey enough to impress. The customer kept nodding his head, his silver hair almost white in the agency’s not so subtle overhead lighting, and Minako found herself growing impatient. She had to be back at Usagi’s and Mamoru’s flat in an hour for their weekly pre-CT meeting. While everyone, even the ever mysterious Setsuna, felt that there was still some time until the prophesied Crystal Tokyo would become a reality, it seemed like a good idea to prepare ahead of time. Before the world of fire and ice and crystals and catastrophes would become their new reality. Before all who would survive thanks to Serenity’s magic (then, Serenity -- no more darling Usagi) would be forced to start anew, pain and destruction in their past. Well, perhaps Minako would share a few pieces of sound advice with the citizens of the Tokyo that was to come. Rebounding from pain, destruction of cities, and losing everyone you knew was something she was, after all, intimately familiar with. Feeling the dark thoughts creeping closer, she straightened her shoulders and the thin chain Chanel purse strap loosely dangling on them. It was time to do something productive. She’d literally have ages to mope. If only that other customer would make way for her plans. Seriously, how long could someone possibly ponder such a simple decision?</p>
<p>“You know, if you want romance, nothing beats Paris,” she finally chimed in, hoping to move things along. Just because she’d been saddled with immortality didn’t mean she had time to spare. “Bit cliché, but some things become clichés for a very good reason. Lovely this time of year. Autumn en Paris est tres jolie!”</p>
<p>The travel agent looked over to her, and the man turned around, quizzical and somewhat annoyed. Their eyes met.</p>
<p>“I prefer something new, thank you,” he said after a moment before turning his attention back to the agent.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Minako had left the agency in a hurry after that, her hands shaking until she turned the corner and composed herself. But the moment haunted her. For years, she would wonder if he’d known her, if his statement was laden with subtext, if the something new he wanted didn’t only pertain to travel arrangements. She’d wondered who his soon-to-be fiancée was, whether she’d said yes, whether they’d live to grow old together, or whether next Tuesday, or the one after that, or any of the ones that followed, he’d suddenly find his way to Mamoru, shoulders heavy with guilt and eyes haunted by crimes of a life long past.</p>
<p>All the Tuesdays came and went, and he didn’t. And then she got angry, for just a minute, not that he had been reborn and lived a life separate from hers, or theirs, really, but that the first time she saw Kunzite again was even more clichéd than taking your future fiancée to fucking Paris. Really, meeting the man you once loved when he was just on the verge of getting engaged. It was as if fate was setting her up to pine hopelessly for a couple of decades and Minako Aino was not having that.</p>
<p>So she had done the only sensible thing there was to do: she went back to the travel agency a week later, booked the plane tickets to Paris, informed Usagi that she’d be retiring Minako Aino after a month of sightseeing and shopping and would return as Venus, Venus only. Usagi had sighed and looked sad for a minute, but Mamoru, who was puttering around behind them, fussing with his books, mumbled something about it making sense, and things were getting unreasonably hard to fake these days.</p>
<p>So Minako Aino flew to Paris and Venus returned.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>A few years later (still no Crystal Tokyo in sight) she saw a white haired little boy who calmly trailed after his parents as they strode into a bank. He was carrying a teddy bear and her heart ached.</p>
<p>She looked into it. Yes. Plane crash. No engagement after all.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>She also saw him once in a lecture hall. Medicine. He studied medicine. Like Mamoru, like Ami. But while the two had long since completed their training and had vacated lecture halls in favour of operating rooms, here he was, taking notes, silver head bent to paper, pencil scratching furiously. He looked a little younger than she did, 19 or 20 or something innocent like that.</p>
<p>Chance had brought her here as she was actually looking for a guest lecture on art history by some rather famous historian with a penchant for lost civilizations and an unusual knack for finding things no one unfamiliar with the Silver Millenium had a right of finding. Wondering for a moment what she should do, she finally stepped back through the door, quiet as a mouse, unseen by the professor and all of his students, her heart perhaps beating just a little bit faster than it should have.</p>
<p>She ran into him at a party in one of the many pubs later that week and found him just as intense as she’d expected. But even the most studious and intense men are still men and Minako couldn’t resist the temptation.</p>
<p>Neither could he.</p>
<p>She left Oxford the next morning, leaving her lipstick smeared on his shirt collar and her underwear on his floor. </p>
<p>Her skin had tingled when he touched her, but the blank expression in his eyes, seeing but not knowing, had killed whatever buzz the encounter had brought. To him, she was the sexy twenty-something touring universities in the UK.</p>
<p>To her, it turned out, he was nothing at all.</p>
<p>The art historian, by the way, turned out to be a reincarnation of fucking Beryl. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It took her a while to wonder what happened to the little boy with the bear. She knew that the student and the boy were not the same, one had not grown into the other. </p>
<p>That poor child. </p>
<p>The thought wrenched something in her, and for the next few years, Venus studiously avoided recognizing anyone anywhere at all.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The famous art historian disappeared on her next research trip. Academia mourned. </p>
<p>Venus did not.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The next time she saw him was on the day of the Great Freeze as she hurried towards the centre of the attack, spreading out from central Tokyo like a kraken ready to devour worlds. She was running down the street towards the chaos, he was running away from it, panic across his face.</p>
<p>Nearly half of the inhabitants on the planet were killed in the mysterious onslaught of snow and ice, while the other was saved by the miraculous blonde woman who encased them in protective crystal and her partner, who awoke them to their grief centuries later.</p>
<p>Suffice to say, he was not among the ones Serenity and Endymion managed to save. Not that she went back to check (she did).</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>During the third decade of Crystal Tokyo’s existence, when things were just about to settle in, Venus was strolling around the large public gardens surrounding the still new palace, only to find a group of protesters huddling near the blooming forsythias. Under Makoto’s -- no, Jupiter’s, she corrected herself --- leadership, the gardeners had turned this barren field into one of the most stunning botanical gardens Venus had ever seen, and it jarred her to see people so obviously not enjoying them. Everyone in the group was holding a sign, all looked severely put out, but at least nobody shouted.</p>
<p>Passing them by and wishing she wasn’t in civilian clothes but her uniform instead, she noticed him from the corner of her eyes. His sign read “we remember: 4 billion dead” and his unlined face was looking just as determined as she remembered. For a second, she thought about stopping, about asking him who he was protesting for, principle or people, but then she moved on.</p>
<p>He looked about 27. She was over 300.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“Does it ever get to you?” Serenity asked, cuddled up between her and a sleeping Mercury, whose glasses were slowly slipping down her nose as her breath quieted just as the city outside the palace gates fell asleep.</p>
<p>“What?” Venus replied absent-mindedly as she flipped through the security reports Uranus had brought by earlier. There was some threat rising over in what used to be Europe. There were only small settlements and about five big cities, but with population spread so thin, the growing whisper of discontent seemed dangerously organized.</p>
<p>“Being alone,” Serenity supplied in a careful voice and gently stroked Mercury’s dark blue hair. When they were girls together, it had been black. Over the centuries, it had begun to change colour, marking the senshi of water as its own.</p>
<p>Minako frowned. She’d have to go talk to Pluto and see whether she could weasel some information out of the older woman. Since day one of Crystal Tokyo, Venus had been waiting for Wiseman to strike. He would be out there, somewhere, biding his time. It was hard, knowing some things about the future, or, as Pluto kept insisting, <em> a </em> future, while being utterly in the dark about most of it. It made her job as chief security officer increasingly difficult. And Serenity’s soft midnight question, so evocative of teenage sleepovers and whispered confidences, surely didn’t help either.</p>
<p>“I’m not alone. I’ve got you and the girls, and  while I find your husband’s sense of gravitas a bit tedious, he’s a nice running partner on very early mornings.”</p>
<p>“You only run with him because you’re afraid someone might attack him,” Usagi chided gently. Mercury stirred in her sleep and the two women fell silent for a while. </p>
<p>“You two never really clicked.” Venus quietly closed the files and put them on the floor. “I do find your husband tolerable,” she said, and bumped her nose gently against Serenity’s, and for just a second, it felt as if they really were schoolgirls once more. Minako and Usagi, close in age, so similar in appearance that they were more often than not mistaken for sisters.</p>
<p>Or so similar that one could pretend to be the other in order to avoid assassination attempts. Venus looked down. </p>
<p>Her mind flashed to a man in a travel agency. A child clutching a teddy bear. A keen student. A panicked refugee. An angry protester.</p>
<p>A man in grey uniform with lightning at his fingertips. A general with silver eyes in a white cape hovering above the Tokyo skyline. Her own sword embedded in her guts, his bloody hands the last thing she saw.</p>
<p>“V?”</p>
<p>Venus pulled back. “It’s been a long time since anything got to me, love. Don’t worry about me.”</p>
<p>A man with green eyes and doom on his shoulders.</p>
<p>She smiled. “Don’t worry about me at all.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Despite her better judgement, she kept tabs on the protester. Name. Age. Location. Associates. People he was fucking. If the blade was already in, what did it hurt to keep pushing a little bit?</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The protester died at the ripe old age of 93, surrounded by his loved ones. She didn’t go to his funeral. </p>
<p>She would have gone to the real Kunzite’s funeral, except that she had the horrible habit of dying shortly before him.</p>
<p>At his hands.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>So time went by. Years. Decades. Centuries.</p>
<p>And still, she lived. And still, she occasionally saw him. And sometimes, the others.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was the sort of thing she could never tell Jupiter, but once, fairly recently really, she’d met a reincarnation of Nephrite in a seedy bar in New Australia. She was pretending to be a travelling reporter by the name of Lucy Pebble while really, she was following up on a rumour about youma sightings. He was drunk and gorgeous and tall, oh so tall, and a little rough around the edges and there was a glint in his eyes that reminded her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It had been a very long time, after all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It came to her when they were in bed and she moved underneath him and he fucked her like it was the last thing he’d ever do and maintained eye contact throughout. His eyes were like the midnight sky, full of stars and secrets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She remembered then, as he pushed deeper and she pushed back and let out a deep moan while clawing her hands into the motel sheets, what it was she’d forgotten.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was that she’d always underestimated Nephrite.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He groaned, his voice guttural, and pulled out only to slide back in again, slowing down his rhythm while she wanted to race ahead. It felt as if all the nerves in her body began to tingle in that glorious way as she met his dark eyes. It had been a while since she’d enjoyed herself so much. She closed her eyes, savouring the feeling.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“God, Venus, more,” he rumbled. Her eyes flew open.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yes, underestimated indeed.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>*** End of Chapter 1 ***</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you ever think this is too good to be true?” Uranus mused and looked out at the cheering crowds, eyes hidden behind sunglasses that were at odds with her senshi uniform. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity and Endymion were doing a procession, throwing roses and candy and little heart-shaped crystals at an admiring crowd while the senshi were strategically positioned just out of sight. It was Salvation Day, the day on which the royal couple had awoken the survivors of the terrible attack on their planet roughly 480 years ago to a new and glorious life of prosperity and health. Because in Crystal Tokyo, living under the combined protection of the Silver Crystal and Endymion’s additional Earth-bound powers, people no longer got sick. Imagine that. And since they had to restructure society anyway, Serenity and Endymion had worked towards an equal distribution of wealth and a more egalitarian system. Well, with royalty on top. Couldn’t have everything, folks. Venus threw her hair over her shoulders and zeroed in on the scene in front of her. Stupid hair was always getting in her way. She’d tried cutting it to a more manageable length a dozen of times, but every since their glorious new world had come about, it would grow out over night as if to give her a giant middle finger. Well, at least it hadn’t turned blue like Mercury’s or aquamarine like Neptune’s.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity stopped and bent down to give a little girl a kiss while Endymion did a rare thing and </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually smiled</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The people went nuts and cheered and cried and generally drowned in a communal experience of love. Venus scoffed. The whole thing felt more like a bad 90s music video to her, but who was she to ruin the party? She knew she was in a particularly foul mood these days, and Salvation Day had always sat at odds with her. It meant that the kind of talk Uranus was aiming for was very clearly not going to happen. She wasn’t going to do the blind loyalty and self-aggrandizing bullshit today. One of her greatest strengths was the ability to look at things clearly. It was something she prided herself on and what she saw today was a lot of things, but too good to be true wasn’t among them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No. Never.” She didn’t bother to look at Uranus as she replied and instead zeroed in on the kid. Was that really a child? She wished Serenity wouldn’t get so close to strangers, but that was a conversation they’d had often enough and it hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Wiseman still hadn’t made his move and while Pluto had told her repeatedly that maybe, given the time travel that had already influenced their timeline so many centuries ago, he might as well not even exist this time around, Venus didn’t believe it for a second. They never got this lucky. Never.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I would have thought that your glasses were a little more rose-tinted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus arched a brow. Damn it, that girl needed to take a step back. Far too close to the Queen, far too fucking close. “Why mine?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Goddess of Love and Beauty? We’re living in a beautiful world and everyone loves our Queen.” There was some satisfaction in the bold statement and certainly a lot of pride, but was that it? Sometimes, Venus simply couldn’t tell whether Uranus was being sarcastic or not. This was one of those times and it made Venus remember why she found her fellow senshi either extremely interesting or extremely annoying. Uranus worked best as a guard dog on a tight leash, not as a partner for philosophical or personal debate. For that, she much preferred Mars. And very occasionally, so once in every 100 years or so, Neptune. Which meant that their next alcohol-fuelled heart-to-heart was due within the next decade or so. Well, the former violinist did have excellent taste in wine. Having her own vineyard in what used to be France certainly helped. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A few minutes went by and Venus knew that the other senshi stationed further down the road as well as Mercury in the control room would be getting antsy that the procession wasn’t moving along. So was she. Did kids have such long attention spans these days? Shouldn’t the girl want to bounce off and play? Then again, Serenity was basically a life-sized princess dream, so perhaps that explained the length of the encounter. Also, a less cynical part of her contributed, the Queen who had once been Usagi Tsukino was probably the nicest person in the universe. Who wouldn’t want to talk to her? No matter how crappy her day, even Venus couldn’t avoid being cheered by her friend’s mere presence. And yet. She sometimes missed the school girl, the ditz, the goofiness. She supposed what she missed was that slice-of-life thing, the normality. Their new normal, after all, was anything but. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Keeping her eyes firmly on the still ongoing encounter, her hands tingling with her powers just in case, Venus said: </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re living in a moderately good world that was forged out of catastrophe. It’s beautiful in an architectural sense, but I prefer wild crops to arranged gardens.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What a Jupiter thing to say.” Venus bit back the urge to say something sharp. Before she’d spoken, she’d already known that it was the kind of answer someone like Uranus wouldn’t be able to comprehend.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity finally let go of the little girl and the procession moved on. “Let’s go, we need to hit our next positions,” Venus told Uranus and was glad that the movement prohibited further conversation. It really wasn’t the day for it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>On her way to their next spot, she made a point to step on one of those stupid little crystal hearts. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It gave a satisfying crack.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was not that she minded. Or that her mind kept wandering back to that stint in New Australia. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Except when it did. Late at night, when she should have been sleeping.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The feeling of his hands on her, the look in his eyes, and finally, the groan of her name. Her true name. And the rest, of course. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The name thing had been a bit of a surprise, almost enough to ruin the encounter, but they were both in too deep and there was a moment of wilful ignorance and the reward of an almost bone-shattering orgasm.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They’d talked a bit, after.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a conversation that she’d buried deep, deep, deep in her subconscious and one that she would never tell anyone about.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was also one that she hoped none of her sisters would ever have because just thinking about it made that crumbly piece of rock that her unloved heart had become crack just like those stupic fucking crystals.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They were lying in bed, coated in sweat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, she’d asked. “How long have you known?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since you walked into the bar.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She rolled to her side and gave him an assessing look. Brown curls tangled, beard stubble all over his broad jaw, and deep brown eyes that looked far too old for him. Well, she supposed so did hers. “My, what an astute observationist you are.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He rubbed a hand over his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could say that. I’ve had some time to practice though.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They were silent for a moment and given what had transpired between them mere minutes ago, it was the sort of silence that Venus did not care for. It unsettled her, as if there was something that should have been said or done or --- something. Something felt wrong and as guilty as she felt, it wasn’t Jupiter. She tried to shrug the feeling off and plowed ahead. That was usually the way to go, wasn’t it? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So before we go to CT, I’ve got a few things to check out here. My hover leaves in three days. I take it you want to join?” She didn’t really feel like trailing youma, but that had been her assignment and she never shied away from her duties. So once she’d taken care of whatever youma she could find, and perhaps he could help with that and she could use this golden opportunity to inspect the state of his presumably long dormant battle skills, they’d also have to talk about how he could not tell Jupiter about this little tete-a-tete. Fuck. She’d gone to bed with him thinking he was like all the other reincarnated people she’d met over the years, with no clue about their past and potential. They’d fuck, and he’d die, ignorant and old. And she’d never have to tell Jupiter about the guy with Nephrite’s face who walked around New Australia.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nephrite got out of bed and reached for his underwear. The muscles in his broad back were working as he reached for other pieces of clothing that they’d kicked to the curb when they’d burst into the room and barely made it to the bed before he’d buried himself deep inside of her. Despite the sense of dread at having been found out, she felt heat rush through her body at the memory. It really had been a spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime fuck. And now it would be a once-in-a-lifetime secret. She was rather good with those.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He got dressed and it was as if the atmosphere in the room shifted with every piece he put back on. Out of habit, she checked the room for hidden weapons. She knew that he didn’t have any on him. Except possibly for those of an internalised magical kind, but she was fairly certain that he wasn’t about to attack. Also, she could beat him with both hands tied behind her back. There was only one shitennou who posed a real threat to her and it wasn’t this one.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, when he’d put his heavy boots back on, he spoke again. He kept his back to her. And given the slump of his shoulders, she suddenly realised that he seemed far more likely to cry than to stab her. “Here’s the deal. I’m not coming with you. And I won’t come with you if you find me again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She frowned. “I wasn’t exactly looking.” Except for Kunzite and to a lesser degree Adonis, she made a point of never ever looking for the current whereabouts of former lovers. Oh God, was that what he was now? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He finally turned to her and there was a look of such sadness on his face that she recoiled and all trivial thoughts fled her mind. His voice was hoarse. “Listen. I remember. I always remember.” He gestured to the ceiling and made an indecisive twinkly gesture that was at odds with his large frame and the beard stubble that had scraped against her skin earlier. “If I don’t, the stars tell me.” She caught herself looking up, but there was only slightly yellowed wallpaper with odd pieces of gum stuck to it. “Either way, I always know at some point.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She parsed his words. “What do you mean, always?” There was no point asking what he always knew. The ghosts and bloodshed and memories were etched into the fine lines around his eyes. She hadn’t noticed before, but now they were impossible to un-see.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He held her gaze. “I mean that I always remember. And then, I die. And I come back. And I will remember it all again. And then I die. Mortal lifespan, immortal memory. That’s what I call a hell of a punishment, wouldn’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Her mouth dropped open. For the first time in God knew how many decades, Venus was lost for words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nephrite took her hand, but there was no longer anything sexual in the touch of skin to skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want Endymion to lose us all over again.” His voice was rough. “To keep losing us every 80 years, if things go really well. 30, 40, or sometimes 5, if it doesn’t. I don’t want him looking. I don’t want him to search. And I don’t want him to find us. Make sure he doesn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Venus pulled her hand from his, mind racing. “Do you remember every life?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chortled. “No. Only the two that matter. The rest comes piling on shortly before the end. Kind of a farewell gift before the next merry go around.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But---” she paused and tried to collect herself. “You don’t look sick. People no longer really get sick,” she insisted, thinking of Serenity’s miracle. “And you’re not old.” He was somewhere in his late 30s. Early 40s maybe, but she somehow didn’t think that he’d entertained a lifestyle that was conducive to looking younger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. But accidents still happen, even in this perfect world.” The worst thing was, he didn’t even sound cynical. Perfect world… Venus didn’t know what to say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If the memories hadn’t been here, all of them, I wouldn’t have-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> wouldn’t have,” he said, more to himself than to her. “But I know my time is almost up. So she won’t have to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So what, was I your pillow candy before you kick the bucket?” Venus burst out, finding a kernel of anger amidst the overwhelming sadness that was weighing down this dingy motel room like the waves would a drowning man.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughed, and it was the real deal. “And damn, what a fine sweet you are.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She told Endymion that she had to do a thorough check of his and Serenity’s personal living space in the palace soon after that. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>While she did check for bugs and explosives -- a routine procedure she carried out at least once a month in places in the palace the royal couple frequented --, she also found what she was really searching for. Predictably, they were hidden in a hollowed out book he kept in his study. It wasn’t that the book gave off any air of magic, or was placed particularly close to his desk or suspiciously far at the back of the shelves. It was the title. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Atonement</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’d read it back in the day and found it utterly depressing and tedious, but after knowing Mamoru for most of his adult life and Endymion for far more than that (she still strangely thought of the two as separate people), she was absolutely sure that this was just the kind of on the nose thinking he’d do. The fact that he otherwise only read non-fiction and the classics was also a dead give-away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Flipping the book open, she found a white cloth, and carefully wrapped inside, four stones.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She stared at them. They looked so ordinary. Was there still a piece of them trapped inside the little chunks of rock? Were the men who had caused so much trouble and brought so much heartache, measured against such tiny fleeting moments of joy, still there? And could she--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They don’t speak.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus whipped around, her heart hammering in her chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity was standing in the door frame, holding two plates of pie. Her twin braids trailed the floor. Her hair was slowly getting white, like a picture that was fading after being forgotten in the sun.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I checked, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Queen entered, put the plates on a coffee table and gently took the stones into her hands and laid them on the desk. “I checked so many times. I’d love for him to have his friends back.” She ran a finger over the piece of blue tanzanite that had once contained Zoisite’s spirit. “I think his last real friend was Motoki.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there any reason you’re looking at them?” the Queen inquired after a moment, and Venus cleared her throat before she could answer. “No, not really. I was looking for bugs and explosives and the book was the wrong weight. And then I found them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus looked at the stones. That was all they were. Stones. Empty. Cold. Dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity nodded and the worst thing was that Venus knew she believed her. So trusting, so kind. Like Jupiter, so easy to fool. She felt like the worst friend in the world, but there was another kind of promise binding her.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s not tell Mamoru,” Serenity said after a while, and began to lovingly wrap the stones back in the white cloth. Belatedly, Venus realised that it came from a piece of the bridal veil the queen had worn when she still answered to another name.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course,” she replied absent-mindedly. What was another secret to her? “There was nothing suspicious about them anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity creased her brows. It was like a lone rain cloud flitting over an otherwise perfect summer sky.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They do glow occasionally.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a moment of silence. “How often?” Venus inquired, trying to keep her voice level. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I wouldn’t know. It’s not like there’s a system. There are no specific times. Sometimes, they don’t do it for decades on end. Sometimes, it’s within a few years. Usually not at the same time. I asked Pluto about it, but she said it didn’t mean anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus gave her friend a sharp look. To put it mildly, Pluto was selective about the truth. Serenity shrugged. “I know.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Venus touched the rough piece of edged green nephrite. It was the least smooth of all the stones, but rather pretty in its own way. Nothing like the perfectly shaped piece of Kunzite, which looked as if a skilled jeweler had spent a lifetime chipping away at it until only perfection remained and he’d lost all his senses.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That one glowed a few weeks ago, I think” Serenity said and pointed to the piece of nephrite. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mhmmm,” Venus said, and pulled her hand back. She forced herself not to speak, with secrets hammering at the door of her heart, demanding to be let out into the world. A few weeks ago. Seven weeks and two days to be exact. Not that she was counting. Her finger was cold where she’d touched the stone.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Turning back to the bookshelves, she straightened her shoulders and resumed her fake search for bombs. “I should be getting back to this,” she murmured and didn’t turn around when Serenity gave her a hug and left, hair trailing on the ground, losing colour with every step.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She had left the motel room without a shower. She didn’t need one because they’d fucked, but she would have loved one to wash the sadness away. It was just that she couldn’t very well do that in his presence. It was his burden, his punishment, as he’d called it, not hers. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So they’d said an awkward goodbye and went their separate ways in the parking lot. He got into an electro car that was built to resemble a pick-up and she disappeared into the woods behind the motel. As she walked deeper into them, knowing the heavy foliage would give way to more scraggly bushes the closer to the mountain peak she got, she wondered whether he’d die driving that car. Car accidents were still a fairly common cause of fatality because cars were driven by people and people were generally stupid.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Or sad. Sometimes sad people drove cars. She’d wondered how many times he had ended his life because the memories came back rather than the memories being an indicator of something else happening to him in the future. She wondered many things. Most of all, she wondered whether the same thing happened to all of them, or whether Nephrite was the only one susceptible to the terrible whispers of his past life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Either way, he was right in not wanting Endymion to know about this. It would break his heart, and that meant that it would break Serenity’s heart also, and then the whole thing would ripple through all the senshi and Venus just couldn’t have that happening. She’d be the pallbearer of this secret. She’d bury it deep inside her and she wouldn’t tell a single soul. Perhaps he’d known that. Perhaps that had been why he had told her in the first place. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Venus stopped and turned back. It was not the right time to climb a mountain. It wasn’t the right time to hunt a youma. He’d been too sad and sad people shouldn’t drive. She broke into a run, branches lashing at her with vigour. She hurried further down the incline when a branch tripped her up and she fell flat on her face. She got up without missing a beat, continuing her race toward a man who was long gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she burst onto the empty lot, he was nowhere in sight.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The day after, she put on some yoga pants, sneakers, and a hoodie and set out to follow the scent of rotten magic the youma had smeared across the small mountain town. She’d smelled it last night, but in retrospect, she hadn’t been in the right mindset to go hunting anyway. Even before she’d run back towards the parking lot like a lunatic.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But today, she wouldn’t fail. She’d hunt and kill the youma, gather intelligence and report back home. It was a simple mission, one she’d carried out so many times she’d long since lost count.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She left just before sunrise, knowing that it would soon get too hot for proper scouting. She’d brought a water bottle and somewhere in the weird space between worlds, the Moon Sword was waiting for her and she was looking forward to plucking it out of thin air and going to town. There was a monster here, she was sure of it now. And it wasn’t an accident that she’d found a shitennou near it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She made her way into the forest, throwing angry glances at roots and branches. Her face bore silent witness to yesterday’s foolish race through the wilderness, with a thin gash right across her cheek. Her knees were also bruised from the tumble she’d taken, and there were more than a few scratches across her legs. Granted, they were healing already and she knew that by tomorrow, they’d be faint scars, and by the time she arrived back in Crystal Tokyo, they’d be mere memories of a weak moment, but right now, they stung. If she used her powers, they’d instantly disappear, but Venus liked small wounds. They made things count again. And looking at her naked body in the bathroom mirror of her hotel, she’d seen the many strikes against her. Today, she’d strike back.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She hiked a few miles by following traces of that rotten scent, a part of her itching for a fight. Eventually, she put on the visor Mercury had made for her and scanned the area for damage and subtle traces of the creature that had no business stomping around and spreading pain and bad memories.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s further up there,” a familiar voice said from behind her. Venus slid the visor atop of her head and turned around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was wearing jeans and t-shirt, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked calm. So he hadn’t run his car against a street lamp. Good for him, she told herself, while feeling more relieved than she should have. “Come for seconds?” Venus asked Nephrite and he almost smiled before looking down and making his way up to her, careful not to step on twigs or small animals.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nope. But I figured you might need some help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you knew about this how?” she asked and gave him a shrewd look. Wiggling her hands skywards, she arched a brow in question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughed. “Yes and no. I knew that there was something in these woods that shouldn’t be here, and that it was something---” he was looking for a word and she realised that he’d lived a mainly normal life. He didn’t have the vocabulary to explain what was going on here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Magical?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bad,” he corrected.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you said your hover was leaving in three days so you’d probably go scouting today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gave him an unusually patient smile. “I don’t scout. I hunt. And then I kill.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shrugged as if this was normal. “Sure. Here to help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Helping her kill. Like handing a co-worker a fucking paper clip. Except that there were no more paper clips because most factories had been destroyed way back when and now people preferred holo documents. What a weird world they lived in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you do magic?” she asked point-blank. “Attack magic? Because if you can’t, then this is a very bad idea.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smiled at her, a broad and genuine smile. It made his eyes crinkle. She could finally see what Jupiter had found so attractive in him. “I always thought that the only person you were protective of was your princess. Nice to see that ain’t true.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus opened her mouth to reply, but found that she didn’t know what to say. “Oh, whatever,” she grumbled. “Let’s get going before the sun boils your beard off.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She should have seen it coming, of course. But she’d been distracted and while in the end, she was sure that he’d known, it wasn’t as if he’d told her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not the specifics, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What bugged her day and night though, was that she should have been able to piece things together anyway. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They’d been walking together for about forty minutes, higher and higher up the mountain, still shaded in the green canopy of the trees. The trees were getting spindly and reminded her uncomfortably of bony fingers, but their dense foliage was a thing of beauty. There was birdsong and even the odd butterfly. He moved with ease and they talked a bit about how he’d grown up around here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Spent my whole life here,” he said and reached out, touching a tree with obvious affection. Man of the fucking woods. “It’s a good place.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I find that it’s the people that make a place good. Are there good people here?” she asked and sidestepped something that looked like a big thistle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He frowned. “I like to think that there are good people everywhere. You just need to look.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t have time to look for people,” she corrected him without bite. “I look for monsters.” She slid the visor down again. All the alarms were blinking. “I don’t understand this,” she said quietly and carefully kept on climbing. “It should be around here somewhere, there are traces all over the place.” She slid the visor up again. All good. She pulled it down again. Chaos.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She turned around to him. “Can’t you use your gift to get us more information?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shook his head, bemused. “I get my ‘information’, if that’s what you want to call it, from the stars. It’s bright daylight.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She looked around. “Well, with the density of these bloody trees, bright isn’t a word I’d use here.” And then it came to her. Fuck.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Nephrite, run,” she yelled just as the ground began to move. This was a mountain. The woods were supposed to be thinning out as they got closer to the peak. They hadn’t. They’d gotten denser. Leaves and spindly white trees wherever you looked.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t move.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then the trees reached for him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nodded at her, as if he’d known all along.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Do you remember every life?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“No. Only the two that matter. The rest comes piling on shortly before the end. Kind of a farewell gift before the next merry go around.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He had known all along.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Protect my prince. Protect Jupiter.” He gave her a smile. She knew it was his last.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He closed his eyes and the world exploded in thunder and lightning.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Her ears rang and when she opened her eyes, all she saw was white. She heard the creature scream, a sharp screeching sound, and when she finally regained power of her senses, her nose burning with the smell of scorched wood, she knew that the shitennous’ powers returned alongside their memories. He’d used his powers to electrocute and set the monster on fire. Not subtle, but effective. He hadn’t taken it out though. She looked around, quickly taking stock without the aid of the visor which she’d lost in the blast.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nephrite’s lightning had scorched the mountainside. There were small fires everywhere and smoke hung across the incline like morning mist. She couldn’t see the monster, but she wouldn’t fall for that again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Calling her powers to her, Venus felt her small wounds and aches give way to her immortal life. Her vision cleared. She knew that as the golden light rained across her and fuelled her powers, her cuts and bruises disappeared. Her fingers twitched with the magic granted to her by her ancestors and extended by Serenity.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was time to kill a youma.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She found him later.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes were open.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She closed them for him. It was the least she could do.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In Tokyo, a piece of stone glowed bright green, filling the king’s study with light for one brief moment before it went out again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Atonement.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Serenity touched the back of the spine. It was such a lovely and sad book, wasn’t it?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Venus walked down the empty hallways of the palace. She’d completed her search, found nothing else of note, wrote a short bland report that clearly stated the lack of explosives and even more clearly didn’t indicate a single word about any stones whatsoever, and sent it to Mercury for archiving. It was barely six in the evening, but the day felt nothing but long and she knew that she’d spend yet another evening holed up in her rooms, thinking. Assessing where she’d gone wrong. Because she was clear about one thing: this had been preventable.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He’d entered those woods knowing he’d die there. She could have taken out that monster by herself. But he hadn’t known that and thought she needed help. A team mission.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps it had been his attempt at redemption, but thinking back to the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and the way his body moved, all she could think was that it had been wasteful and unnecessary.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So many lifetimes. So many regrets.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She turned a corner, heels clicking on the stone floors. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She reached for her communicator and pressed an aquamarine button. Maybe tonight wasn’t a night to be alone after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes?” a polished feminine voice answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus took a deep breath. “I’m in the mood for wine, lots of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a little laugh, like a slender bell tinkling in a silver tower. “I do happen to have a lovely white chilled to the perfect temperature. It’s from the harvest about seven years ago, absolutely glorious.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Venus looked at the polished floor and her reflection, pale and drawn, looked back up at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds perfect, Neptune. I’ll be right up.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>*** End of Chapter Two ***</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>All mentions of trees are for Charlie. Enjoy.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a late birthday present for my darling Charlie. I miss you. Happy belated birthday, my love!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>